


The Ties That Bind

by OceanTheSoulRebel



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Beginnings of Hawrill, F/F, Hawke is in a dark place, past character deaths, self reflections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 05:39:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17760836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanTheSoulRebel/pseuds/OceanTheSoulRebel
Summary: Family matters.





	The Ties That Bind

“I think… I don’t think Mother likes me anymore.”

The words tumble from Hawke’s lips and shatter like glass against the cold silence of the room.

Merrill looks up from her sketch, the stick of charcoal jolting uncaringly from her hand. She watches as Hawke pours herself another finger of whisky and carefully sips.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Merrill says, because a proclamation like that can’t be left unaddressed. “She… she seems nice enough. Never home, though.”

“Yeah. She’s off with some suitor, so Bodahn says. He can keep her, for all I care.” Hawke empties her glass in a single swallow and pours another.

“I just… Everything I do, you know?” she continues. “It’s never enough. Bethy and I worked hard to get everyone into the city, and I even took on more and more jobs to make sure Mother was paid for, but no, that’s just what I was expected to do. Not that I wanted thanks or anything, because I had to do it, there wasn’t a choice, but a little appreciation would have been nice. No, instead she nagged at me, asking why I took Beth with me on jobs. Why she couldn’t be left at home with her, safe and sound.”

“But she was safe, wasn’t she? She was strong!”

Hawke sighs and the sound pulls an answering ache deep from Merrill’s chest.

“I just… and then the Deep Roads. I worked my ass off for that expedition. Scrimped and scraped for over six months. There was always something new to pay for, some new expense, or Gamlen stealing from my stash to pay for his night on the town. But she never said anything, just pursed her lips and gave me a pinched look when I’d come back home from a job. Or worse, she’d rail at me for being gone so long, but really I wondered if she even wanted me to return at all.”

Hawke cleared her throat, gaze empty as she stared at her drink.

“And then she said it, tore her hair and everything when I came back and Bethy didn’t. ‘Why did it have to be Bethany?’ she asked. ‘Why her, and not you?’ I’ll never forget that. The look on Mother’s face when I walked in, half dead and starving and covered in blood, and she could only look over my shoulders for her.”

“Hawke…”

There’s a pause again before Hawke speaks, the silence ponderous and heavy.

“You know she blames me for Carver?” she asks, voice shaking. “All the way back in Ferelden. It’s been, what, four, no, five years now? And I should have been the one with the ogre, should have been the one to get hit. But no.” Her face pinches and she shoves the glass of whisky away with shaking hands. “No. Mother’s favorites both died because the world is cold and unfeeling and the Maker is an asshole. What I wouldn’t give, Merrill, to be there and he here. For both of them.”

Merrill stands from the table and moves behind Hawke, curls her hands over Hawke’s shoulders and squeezes. Her heart thunders in her chest; Hawke never talks about Carver, and rarely says anything about her sister. Merrill had had the chance to meet on a few occasions but didn’t know her well. Bethany was quiet but kind, curious but cautious.

And she always made Hawke smile; that much Merrill remembers and loves about her.

“Mother told me I was too nice, you know,” Hawke says, and she cradles her face in her hands. “Said I should have forced Anders down there with us. She even likes him, says he reminds her of Father sometimes. But she told me I should have made him come with us, to… do whatever Wardens do, I guess, in the Deep Roads.”

“Bethany was an adult,” Merrill hazards, rubbing wide circles into the tense muscles of Hawke’s neck with her thumbs. “We make our choices.”

“And apparently I’m responsible for hers.”

Hawke falls silent again, and Merrill hums something while her hands smooth down her back.

“My family doesn’t like me, either,” Merrill eventually says, her voice small. “I… before the eluvian, before I came to Clan Sabrae… they sent me away. Didn’t want me. Marethari said it was a good thing that they did but…”

She breaks off and shakes her head. “And then there was the mirror, and even though we tried so hard to be careful, it…” Her legs wobble beneath her, and her words come out in a breathless rush. “I killed them. Mahariel and Tamlen both. We didn’t know it had the Blight, but it did and it made them sick and I had to help them and bring them back. Tamlen’s mother fostered me, was so good to me, and I killed her little boy, didn’t I? And Marethari never let me forget it.”

“What did you do then?”

“What I could.” Her hands still and she twists her fingers nervously into the fabric of Hawke’s tunic. “I had the mirror. I couldn’t let their deaths be in vain, could I? It’s not our way. Nothing is meaningless. So I took it, shoved bits and pieces into the aravels and even gave up some of my own stuff to make sure it came with me. I had to make it mean something.”

Hawke turns and pushes away from the table slightly to pull Merrill into her lap. She leans up to touch their brows together, as intimate as a kiss. Merrill shivers at the contact.

“The Veil is weird around Sundermount, isn’t it? Anders and Bethy both said it was, when we went up to meet you.” She pauses. “Is that where you met the demon?” Hawke asks softly, slowly.

Merrill’s breath punches out of her in a shallow sigh. Her eyes shutter closed. “I had to make it mean something.”

“So you fix the el—the elyoo—the mirror,” Hawke says, stumbling, and Merrill smiles inwardly at the continuous mishmash that is Hawke’s attempts at Elvish, “and Marethari’s mad at you again and kicks you out of the house. Void, what a colossal bitch.”

“She’s not—” Merrill starts, then shakes her head. “She… was afraid. Of a lot. And I didn’t help, I know that, but I tried—tried  _ so hard!  _ And—”

Merrill cuts herself off and clenches her eyes shut. “I understand,” she says finally. “I know that family is complicated.”

Hawke’s hands find her low back and Merrill trembles, shaking where they touch. Hawke sees the good in everyone, and Merrill wants so badly to move into the spaces that Hawke leaves between her and the others.

“So I can take it,” Merrill murmurs, “if you need to cry about this.”

Merrill opens her eyes to tears streaming silently down Hawke’s cheeks, and it’s a natural thing for her hands to come up to cup her face, for her thumbs to brush over the wet tracks they leave.

Hawke gives a watery chuckle, her gaze never leaving Merrill’s face. “You know, they say the ties that bind also strangle.”

Merrill laughs, tears welling in her own eyes. “I’m a blood mage, Hawke,” she answers weakly. “I always have a knife.” 

**Author's Note:**

> And then "All That Remains" happens and Hawke feels *even worse*
> 
> Kirkwall is a bit of a shit place, isn't it? 
> 
> \--
> 
> Come find me on tumblr at [ocean-in-my-rebel-soul!](https://ocean-in-my-rebel-soul.tumblr.com)
> 
> Comments and concrit always appreciated! Thank you for reading!


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